Daily
Thoughts:
I have always liked the story that we find in today’s Gospel (Mark 12: 28-34).
I especially like the end when Jesus looks at the scribe and says, “You are not
far from the Kingdom of God.” It is perhaps the only moment in the Gospels when
Jesus and the scribes are on the same page. There is a mutual understanding, a
mutual respect at this moment in the struggle between Jesus and the religious
leaders of his time. It is a nice thing to see. Would that this kind of
understand and respect would happen between leaders of all kinds during our
time.
The
respect and understanding centers around the two great commandments, love of
God and love of neighbor and we might say there is a third, love of self,
because Jesus says we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. As Jesus teaches
and the scribe comes to understand, these are the two or three great
commandments and everything else flows from them, which might explain why we
find ourselves in the struggles that we are in today.
If we
just look around at our world, our culture, our society, our church the
problems that we find relate to the way we live out or perhaps better said,
don’t live out these commandments. Our struggles can be directly related to how
we don’t value God and perhaps more importantly how we don’t value others or
ourselves. We might even say that our struggles as a culture, society, church
and a world can be traced to the lack of love that we have for ourselves. If we
don’t love ourselves how can we love others, how can we love God?
Love is
not just wanting the best for ourselves, others and God. Love is a respect, a
reverence for life, for who we are as individuals, as a culture, as a society,
as a church, as a world. Love is finding the good in ourselves, others and God.
Love is seeing God in others and in ourselves. Love is seeing, acknowledging,
and accepting the differences in ourselves and others but most importantly
still being able to find God.
Our
challenge today and every day is to put into practice these three great
commandments. Our challenge is to wake up each day in love with God, our
neighbor and ourselves!
Have a
great Thursday everyone!
Daily
Prayer:
Loving God, strengthen us with the power to love through your Spirit in our
inner most being. Fill our hearts with your presence and please do not leave us
to face the struggles of life alone. Help us to grasp how wide and long and
high and deep your love is for us. And, above all, grace us with the
understanding that your love surpasses all knowledge and give us the courage to
always share it with others. Amen!
A
Runner’s Thoughts: “It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone
would do it. The hard… is what makes it great.” (Tom Hanks as Jimmy Dugan in “A League of Their Own”)
Daily
Blessing:
Thursday greetings and blessings to everyone! I hope your day has started off
well and that your week is going smoothly. If not be assured that you are in my
prayers with the hope that things will get better!
It looks
to be another beautiful sunny day here in Pelham with the temperature not as
warm as previous days. I hope you are enjoying the beauty of spring wherever
you are today.
I
celebrated National Running Day yesterday with a 10.2 mile run it was also my third
day of 10 or more miles of running. I am starting to build daily and weekly mileage
as I continue to prepare for my ultra-marathon in September. The next thing I
need to add to my runs is a backpack weighing about 10 to 12 pounds. I need to
get use to running with a backpack as I will need to do it in the September
race.
Well
friends, I hope you have a great day. My prayer of blessing is that whatever this
day becomes in your life that it will be life giving and grace filled. May you
and whoever you meet bring a positive spirit to this day. May God’s love be
with you and all those you love today and always! Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr.
Paul
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